Sometimes, some fighters just do a persons head in SO much they cant help themselves but hate. For a number of reasons in no particular order...

A)personality
B)nationality
c)hype
d)popularity

Some quick examples,
personality? Look no further than degale. Won olympic gold, made his country proud but cos he came across as a **** to Groves? More hate him than like him nowadays.

Nationality? Look no further than Ricky Burns. One of boxings good guys, won his title the hard way, defends against Ring top 10 fighters, but he almost always gets near 100 post threads with the majority here mocking him, & only a few brave souls daring to stand up for him. You can throw Cleverly into that mix too, its no coincidence that two of the most hated fighters here dont come from the biggest country in the UK. Go figure.

hype? Look no further than Ricky Hatton from the past, & nowadays Kell Brook. Once SKY get behind a fighter? They get BEHIND a fighter. They shower them with so much praise, tell so much bare faced lies & basically insult peoples intelligence with the drivel they spout about the greatness of the fighter they are backing, that people want to see these fighters fail & get derailed, & start hating on the fighter, instead of hating on the ones behind all the bull****, the ones creating the hype that can turn a fighter into a egomaniac.

popularity? Hype builds popularity, & when someone dislikes a hyped fighter cos they dont think he deserves it? The tipping point is when the hyped fighter starts pulling big crowds, the hater sees these big crowds for a fighter he doesnt like, & its red mist time, & all hope is lost as the hater downward spirals into a life of snarling at the TV screen & typing on forums(or shaky live feed) with angry fingers & steam coming out of their ears, as the crowd belt out anthems in adoration of their new boxing hero in the background!

am I defending haters? No. However, I can understand why they exist.

Superb post..................

Quote:

Originally Posted by swingin

A)personality
B)nationality
c)hype
d)popularity

true. but i hate soccer now because of the robbery of the soccer world cup of the aussies against the eventual winners in about 2006. **** game. next game we would have beaten england and advanced to the final.

we were robbed. **** decision. still no video refs. absolutely a rigged betting sport.

I always support the British boxers in general as a matter of course, unless there is something about them I genuinely dislike in terms of persona. To be honest I never liked Naseem Hamed, always thought he was a ****head and loved it when Barrera humbled him. I don't have any particular problem with Khan or Degale other than they sometimes shout their mouth off without thinking but no more than most other boxers.

I think with Hatton, a lot of the supposed boxing fans on ESB probably got in to boxing as a result of him and followed him to the end, when he got KO'd by Pac and Mayweather and and those fans learned a little more about the sport they turned on him probably as much from their own embarrassment as his.

Boxing is a sport though, people take personalities a bit too far if you ask me, it's not like I can't enjoy watching Ronaldo play football despite thinking he is a horrendous excuse for a man. Similarly I enjoyed watching Prince Naseem despite not really having much respect for him as a person. It's difficult in the UK to be successful and be popular, the country loves an underdog, as soon as someone from these shores is expected to win fights they suddenly become very unpopular, it's a little bit strange.

Heard a lot of booing for Glen Johnson against Clinton Woods.How can any real fan boo him??

I went to watch Clinton a lot and always enjoyed seeing him fight; a lot of the crowd at the bigger events, though, were Wednesday yobs who didn't know **** from elbow. Bit like Hatton really with all the City ****ers, just on a lesser scale. Johnson wasn't the only one; I can remember JC Gonzalez, god bless him, being on the end of some horrible racist abuse from my area of the crowd at the Hallam FM area both times.

A small gang of BNP lads behind me and my two mates were calling him all sorts of ****. I'd already turned around twice to warn them to pack it in sharpish, and my mate, who's pretty handy, was on the verge of cracking one of them. Me and the other mate were about to try and stop him, but another bloke a couple of seats along who'd been quiet throughout - and was about 7 foot tall into the bargain - leaned over and sort of calmly said if they weren't quiet for the rest of the fight, they'd -and I quote - ''need a ****ing air crash investigation team to put them all back into one piece''.

And they listened, funnily enough. Horrible *******s. Like you alluded to, it's bad enough that it happens at all, but to road warriors like Johnson and Gonzalez?

I'm generally very critical of modern boxing, but it's more to do with everything but the fighters themselves tbh: politics, the declining talent pool, the devolution of skill, the hyperbolic attitude and general ineptitude of the media etc. But very rarely the fighters themselves. There are the *****s like Mayweather who get my back up every now and again, but I think I'm fair overall.

I watch, enjoy and play a lot of sport, but I'm quite cynical in that I think it brings out the nasty, stupid and ****tish side of people more often than it actually engenders it's own supposed values and spirit, and it thoroughly overestimates it's own importance in society. The gits who waffle on about sport's ability to dismantle barriers, leave a legacy and heal broken society blah blah are nearly as irritating as the reactionary keyboard warrior types that are the subject of this thread imo.

Take the Commonwealth Games as an example. I can remember all the hoopla in the UK over India hosting the Commonwealths back in 2010. Having been to New Delhi since, trust me, there's no lasting legacy or anything of the kind, despite what BBC Sport would have you believe. Life there for 90% of joe public is just as desperate and tough as it was before.